OneGuyFromBarlick

That's right, it's a scam. I think it was Paul Lewis I heard on the radio (Money Box) saying that scammers had started that trick. Of course they use it as a way to get your personal information.

We've had the same problem with genuine services withholding their phone numbers when calling us, including care services and hospitals. It's a failure of management in the organisations to set up their phone services appropriately for the job.

I'm reasonably free from them perhaps due to the fact I ignore the phone so much but I had one yesterday, hung up of course.....

As for registering on-line with the real TPS - I've done a few for various elderly persons now.
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Had the Microsoft virus one yesterday (first for months) and managed almost ten minutes before he twigged. I was using my lap top at the time so he would have heard me "typing" and muttering ! That's ten minutes when he wasn't scamming someone else.
OH has great fun with the switching gas and electric callers - it isn't until they get asked when they can make the first delivery of gas that they realise we have LPG ...
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I know several people that have worked in call centres, not scamming ones, and from their accounts it isn't that nice a job. So unless they repeat calls or get to persistent I'm usually "fairly" polite.
Apart from TalkTalk - they get as rude as I can manage for as long as possible. They scammed my elderly father a few years ago and it took a long time and much expense before we sorted the mess out. I know he would never have agreed to switch his 'phone or anything else without paperwork to read ...

I made the mistake of picking up the phone on a cold call two days ago and am now having to ignore the phone ringing again. I must have triggered the 'active number' algorithm......

We need to protect people who are vulnerable through age or disability but also educate better to make folk less gullible...
`Phone scammers: 'Give me £1,000 to stop calling you'' LINK

I saw that news report Peter. You or I would never pay but as long as there are people out there who are vulnerable they should be protected.
From what I have heard directly from people who have tried to contact the Cyber Crime unit there is a bit of a problem as the police say it is a separate body from them. I don't understand that.....

From this web site: LINK
Action Fraud is the UK’s national reporting centre for fraud and cybercrime where you should report fraud if you have been scammed, defrauded or experienced cyber crime in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. This includes the reporting of cyber dependent crime such as network intrusion and unauthorised access to computer material, denial of service incidents and malware attacks. The service is run by the City of London Police working alongside the National Fraud Intelligence Bureau (NFIB) who are responsible for assessment of the reports and to ensure that your fraud reports reach the right place. The City of London Police is the national policing lead for economic crime.

We had a lot of scam calls on our landline a couple of days ago - all in one day and nothing since - very strange. All different phone numbers and all ended without us answering.

They seem to come in flurries Peter, like a fall of snow and no doubt governed by the same Chaos mechanism as the weather.

Mrs Tiz just had a call on our landline: `Hi, I'm Chris, your local energy advisor, how are you doing today?' Mrs Tiz: `I don't want anything, thank you. Goodbye.'
Unfortunately lots of people will fall for that kind of call, especially older folk who are more likely to have and use landline phones. The new CEO of NatWest is a Canadian and he's been in banking in both Canada and Australia before coming here. He says we Brits are just far too trusting in these situations compared with folk in other countries and he's not surprised that there's such a high frequency of these scams here in the UK.

Energy is in the news and likely to be on people's minds so in the scammer's terms, this is the way to go I suppose.
Not a phone call but I keep getting energy related scams via email purporting to come from British Gas asking if my boiler is ready for winter. Also saying (in an email) that they have tried to send me an email but failed so they are sending an email. (?)
Guess what I do with them....

We've not had scam calls on our landline for many months but then on Thursday I got: `John from the driveways centre. I believe you have a driveway...[call cut off by me] and then on Friday: `John from the health security centre. We can offer you...[call cut off by me]. I haven't had today's call yet!

My landline has been ringing but I only picked it up once and it was dead air.....

Sally received a call on her mobile while she was out just after lunch. Supposedly from VISA to say that there was a suspected £600 fraudulent transaction on our credit card. She was given a number to ring but didn't. Quick check when she was home on the originating number of the call which didn't turn anything up but I noted that it was mobile number. Google search next on £600 VISA scam and bingo, currently doing the rounds to catch out the unwary. The scam of course is to get the card details during the "security check" that would follow if you rang them back.

I might try ringing them back with my Acme Thunderer, that would be fun!

Thanks for the heads up on that one Ian, it’s so easy to be taken in if we aren’t vigilant.

Thanks Ian. My blanket strategy is never to give anything to anyone even if I think I know who they are! I was recently asked for the last two digits of my bank account number by British Gas as part of as security check on their chat line. I told them no way, I was still passed as genuine.

I’ve just had this one Ian re £600 being used in France, it was an automatic message, I was asked to press 1, so I put the phone down. I searched the number but came up with nothing, so you are all aware this is the number and it came up as France on the location on my phone. +33756169409.

Just had another from Cardiff speaking about a rewards system. Searched the number and guess what, it’s spam. Looks like my mobile number has been passed about.

Gloria, it's got to the stage these days that if I don't instantly recognise the caller or understand what the message is about I simply ditch and delete. I haven't noted any serious effects from this as yet!

A few posts on the Barnoldswick Talk Facebook page about automated calls from Virgin Money. The calls use a recorded message advising of suspected fraudulent activity in your Virgin Money account and gives a number to call. The messages sound genuine, with the exception of the number to call and the calling number has been spoofed. As Virgin Money took over Yorkshire Bank this could be relevant to locals.

https://who-called.co.uk/Number/03456028301

I have been receiving quite a lot of calls recently on my mobile which are automatically flagged as potential fraud or scam calls. I reject them of course and block the numbers. Not had the Virgin one yet.

No real point blocking as they change the numbers all the time. The scammers have started using a Cambridge prefix number now (01223) which causes me real distress and anxiety as the calls on my landline from that code are likely to be bad news, on more than one subject. I don't like the word spoofing as that seems all too trivial and even friendly.

I hate them. . . .

Tripps wrote: ↑04 Jul 2022, 16:16 No real point blocking as they change the numbers all the time.

Indeed they do but better to block than leave alone. Good that my mobile recognises the bad ones.

" I don't like the word spoofing as that seems all too trivial and even friendly. "
I'll second that. All scams should be regarded far more seriously and life made extremely difficult for the perpetrators....
I may be wrong but I see a similar attitude to that of the banks to internal fraud, it's cheaper (and therefore better) to do nothing and pay up when shit happens. That's not good enough.

If you get a phone call from 02039856178 end it immediately. Lots of people around the country have received scam calls from that number today. Some who answered got a silence, we got someone saying they were from Currys, others have been told O2. Some have been offered 40% discount on things but they knew it was a scam.